PHILADELPHIA — Make no mistake, Dave Canales was not completely thrilled with what he saw.

Sure, the Panthers won 25-14 at Philadelphia and held the Eagles to 222 yards (including just 35 on the ground).

They nearly gave that many yards back, setting a franchise record with 149 penalty yards, on 13 flags (tied for third-most in franchise history).

He called it "outrageous," and that doesn't seem like an overstatement, but his team also showed him something else.

Resilience.

Particularly on defense.

And no matter the Eagles' injury problems (they were without quarterback Jalen Hurts, running back Saquon Barkley, and many more), the Panthers put together a more coherent performance on defense. ​

"Yeah, I think everybody did a good job of not caring about how it felt and the circumstances and yada yada yada," veteran safety Nick Scott said. "Like at the end of the day, however you feel, first, second, third quarter, when it's time to finish, you got to finish, and that's exactly what we did. We finished on special teams. We finished on defense, and offense did a good job of making sure that it didn't have to come back to us. And that's what it's all about.

"Playing complementary football doesn't look like playing perfect football. It looks like playing off of one another regardless of what the situation."

And the situation is obviously not ideal.

They're out there without starting cornerbacks Jaycee Horn and Mike Jackson for at least another five or six weeks, meaning the remaining corners find themselves in roles not prepared for at the beginning of the year.

A week ago, the Lions targeted Akayleb Evans early and often, and he gave up some plays, and they stuck with him. This week, rookie Will Lee III was getting a lot of action and committed a pair of pass interference penalties that accounted for 46 of the yards.

"Will had a great game," Canales said. "I thought, some beautiful pass breakups down the field, short and intermediate. He's getting penalties because he's challenging people. I'm fine with that. Can he work on having cleaner hands? Sure. Are you going to be a successful DB in this in the NFL if you don't use your hands? No, you're not. And I love the fact that he took the challenge.

"He stayed up there and impressed. They were able to get a big touchdown later on in the game, but for the most part, that's exactly how you've got to play ball when you have your opportunities, get up there, challenge them, make them have to throw an accurate pass, and so I was really proud of the way he played."

Lee just grinned and shook his head at the penalties, particularly the one when he grabbed a handful of tight end Dallas Goedert's pants, inadvertently revealing a crescent moon ("I had no idea," he laughed. "That's crazy"), but knows this is the kind of attention he's going to get until Horn and Jackson come back. The three pass breakups and the win made it easier to accept.

"When you're playing at such a competitive level and want to compete like I do out there on the field, you just move past it," Lee said. "Honestly, it's really a next-play mindset for me. I'm not really going to think too much of it out there on the field.

"Of course I'm going to come back in the locker room after the game's over and have my thoughts on the calls, and of course we're out there, the ref made that call, and that's how he feels. That call was made and you just got to live with it out there, and then just play the next play. If that's how you live, that's how you live. If you're not trying out there, you're not going to get no calls. So I kind of feel like I'm just going to play to my advantage and just keep hooping."

Scott, the elder statesman of the secondary, laughed when asked about Lee, because the vets love his willingness to compete and forget.

"A guy like Will is like your dream rookie, man," Scott said. "He just comes in with a ton of confidence and doesn't care about what the results are like. I've never seen Will flinch on a catch. I've never seen him flinch or get too high on a PBU. He's just level-headed. He knows his job and just plays with an extreme amount of confidence.

That kind of resilience was evident throughout the day, by many. They had three sacks and five tackles for loss, with linebacker Bobby Okereke filling up a stat sheet (he had a team-high eight tackles, a sack, three TFLs, and batted down two passes).

"Yeah, it took all three phases, complimentary football," Okereke said. "They've got a really good defense on that side of the ball, so we told ourselves throughout the week that we had to outplay their defense like we did, and our offense obviously closed in the end, and that's the type of football that's going to take us where we want to go."

But it was all of them, from Derrick Brown with a key tipped pass late to negate another penalty, and rookie safety Zakee Wheatley with a late breakup on fourth down to help preserve things.

Those kinds of timely plays, especially late, made up for the sloppy nature of the start of the game.

"We've got a resilient squad," linebacker Devin Lloyd said. "Even though we may shoot ourselves in the foot, we just find a way to keep fighting and execute when we need it the most.

"It's good to see the fight. I mean, obviously we don't want to put ourselves in that position. But to do it in a hostile environment, and we're not making excuses for who is out there. It's a winning culture for the team that we play."

And perhaps, they're building one themselves.